The Deadly Release
by Shinsei Tenshi
Summary: A boy looses everything to a demon and has to live running from it and his past. science fiction
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Death Reappears

He stepped sideways, quickly, thrust his wooden sword to his right, a twist then slice to the left with a cross over swing--boom! He fell onto the roof of the abandoned building his family had recently inhabited. He lived with his mother and sister; their father had been killed in a hunting party that came upon a war party that was on edge.

He had loved to play with his father's sword when he was young, but now that he was gone, all he had was this little wooden sword.

He had been spying on the local sword masters gyms in town, and he got lessens for "free". He left his sword on the roof, he wouldn't need it inside. His sister was just 4 years old; too young to know how much trouble they were in. His mother was rocking in her chair, counting the money in the "jar", were they held the money to repay their fathers debt. He had a gambling problem, and when it finally caught up to him, he was penny-less. He then joined a fur trading company that was going out for hunting, and needed able men. His father had gone but-"are you ok? I heard you fall up there" said his mother

"I'm fine, one foot just hit another."

"How is dinner, I'm starting to get really hungry?" she asked putting the jar away in a loose floorboard in the corner of the family room. It was about two feet long, six inches wide, allowing the jar a perfect fit.

" it will be an hour or two, it is just roasting in hot water." he had caught a nice rabbit with his bow running through the autumn leaves this morning; it had scared him into shooting early, but he still hit it. He wasn't too surprised though, that had been happening a lot lately.

"I'm going out, but I'll be back soon."

"Ok. Be safe, it is a big city, and you are only 10" she said, giving him the look she sometimes gave to all of his father's old possessions when he found her crying in her room. Sometimes he hated his father for dieing on his family and obligations, but no matter what ran through his head, he would always love his father for the memories he left him.

"Mom, I'm bigger than half the first years here, and I have another three years till I take my vows to the gods and my new lord accepts me to study under him for a year." A first year took a vow to local lord to learn the basics of battle, literature, reading, writing, etc. For a whole year he would became a part of another family and learn everything he needed to know to live. " You know I can watch out for myself" and with that he was gone.

Jed, named then shortened from his dad's oldest brother kraithjed, a dark necromancer who would have been the most enthusiastic and powerful of his kind would have done great things, if he had not given his life in vain to save Jed's father.

He liked roaming the streets at sunset, the horizon reminded him of blood spreading across the floor, or the spray of a fresh five inch deep gash across a mans chest. He used to be afraid of the thoughts he had, but they happened so often now they seemed like a part of him.

He did not look forward to leaving his only family for a couple of days; he didn't know what he was going to do about having to leave for a year. The thought of leaving his sister and mom for that long was agonizing on many mental levels for him, even with the visits every other month.

He watched the exercises of "The Hand is quicker than the Eye", in which the master caught the student by surprise with a sudden burst of speed and wood that knocked the first kid unconscious and sent a few others away in stretchers. The kids loved it though. If you weren't a weaver of magic or a warrior, you weren't considering anybody of any importance to any race or territory. You could not become a lord without one or the other. That is why the kids could put up with getting carried out in a stretcher with a genuine smile on their face.

He looked at the stars in the sky and realized he had been here longer than he meant to be. _Mother won't be happy if dinner is burnt tonight._ He had just started jogging home when he noticed the cries and the smoke in the distance.

"Dear gods don't do this to **ME**!" he said as he broke out into a flat-out sprint back to his house. Directly towards the fire.

As he came within a mile or so of his house, he noticed there was no noises accept the distant roar of the flames, with smoke driving miles into the air.

As he turned the corner leading to his house, he nearly fainted from what he saw. His home was a thirty foot wall of searing, burning memories and… Then came a feeling and thought he had never and couldn't prepare himself for. His family. As that reality burned itself into his brain, he started to tunnel vision. He was sinking inside of himself. He was running towards the door, and he had just about lost consciousness, when the next most horrific site he would ever see stepped out of the house.

He froze, unable to think and barely able to breathe, and saw what could only be Death.

A massive, human shaped form stepped out of the threshold, bleeding shadows and killing even the dead wood of the door way that its massive form took over. It was made from what seemed like black mist, but totally solid in a way that water is fluid. Tendrils of black smoke moved, touched, and assessed everything around the beast.

A ripping sound alerted the tiny bit of mind jed still possessed, that the monster was now looking at him, and somehow he knew he was what is had been after. By then the full shock of that had and was happening hit jed hard, and he lost control of his body and mind to what used to be a foreign presence, but that jed now knew long enough to accept; but this time the presence didn't sooth or try to make jed happy, it took complete control of his body and ran. Jed was barley alive, so didn't notice the gasps as his body sped through the crowds at unbelievable speeds, dodging tendrils of black smoke and water with the grace of the greatest dancer. He had no way of knowing he was the last of the ancient, "almost" immortal, Skrull.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Growing up

_Thump!_ " excuse me sir, I did not see you there" said a young, gruff voice from under the hood of the black cloaked figure slinking drunkenly down the dark road of the city, as he bumped into a lord chatting with a first year, both unaware of the deceptive movements of the young man under the hood.

"It's quite all right. Just watch out; others aren't as enlightened as I am and won't let you walk away without some missing fingers or appendages." He said smirking in what he thought was superiority.

"Ah, yah, ok" said the seemingly too drunk young man.

The lord walked away with disgust showing in his eyes.

The "drunken" wanderer walked away with a heavy purse full of gold coins. He would stay drunk for days off the local liquor with this much money. Jed laughed as he headed to the nearest inn, found a table in the back, and ordered a mug of the black steaming hard liquor the locals called _Ishti, _laughing the whole time.

Jed navigated through the alleyways with the precision of a life long veteran of the city, even though he had just arrived a week ago. _All cities are the same, _he thought as he walked, and they were; all the cities and clans were built inside a circle of stone at least three horses thick. Nobody remembered when they were put up, but all knew why. Jed had heard it said once that to stay outside of the ancient walls at night was instant death and nobody was stupid enough to do it alone. _I must be really stupid for doing it every night. _The people were weak, and afraid of the demons and monsters that assume a shape of what they want in the forests and fields outside of the walls. Jed knew from experience though that one rarely ever saw one though.

After that night he had woken up next to a tree in a forest as dark as night from the tightly wound foliage above him. He thought about that day often; that was the day he started learning to listen to the silent instincts that he had always disregarded, and that now saved his life on a nearly daily basis.

He took the massive hip flask from the inside of his cloak and left it tipped for longer than he had intended; after what happened six years ago, he had picked up a nasty habit of drinking enough in one sitting to knock a horse out for a couple of days. He was never without at least four full, big, flasks of the hardest alcohol he could find. He had long ago stopped trying to figure out where he was, or what he was eating or drinking; who would when you had to leave a few days after getting there every time, and he knew he had never been to the same place twice. Since that day he had been running from that damn black demon, living in alleys and abandoned shelters, and every town and city had been attacked to get to him. He didn't know why _"it" _chased him every where he went, but it did, and it was trying to kill him. That was how he had learned that staying in a place where demons attack anything, including demons, might slow it down or hurt it enough for Jed to get away for at least a couple of weeks. That had been his dream for six years now.

Growing up how he did, you gain skills that get you by. The very first street trait he learned was that of the pickpocket, so naturally, other than steel or bow, it was his best skill. He could steal everything from the cities best thief, and hold a conversation with him while he was doing it. His battle skills though came to him as easily as breathing. When his first fight had started, he had blanked out, then woken up over the bloody body of the unrecognizable face of the bar patron who had started it. People had been screaming demon, pointing at him and running. Now-a-days he knew why; the more something happened that left him unconscious, the more he remembered and had control over it; and he was evil. If it served his purpose, he could take another life without a second thought; it was like a release, similar to sex, yet more satisfying and addicting.

It was getting dark, so he went to the nearest inn to get the food and drink he would need for the night in the broken down building he had found at the edge of the city. He drank and played a game of cards with some soldiers who came in for some respite after a hard day of training and battle practice. War was common in these lands; Jed had even been hired a few times to assassinate a leader or a warrior giving the other troops confidence; he had been ordered to scare them into falling on their own weapons.

He had succeeded with flying colors; he scared the troops enough to make a whole contingent of men run like children. He had crucified the leader upside down to a tree, bleeding from every orifice, accept there wasn't a scratch on him. This happened from the evil inside him telling him to bask in the blood of his enemies, to really let them know there was something out there that just cared less about life than the under keeper himself. The demon that was chasing him was different though. He did not run from fear of it; the small bit of sanity Jed still had originated from the night that thing killed everything he had. That demon was essentially all he had left. He pulled the aces from his sleeve with the skill of a bird lifting off for flight. He took the money and left.

The walk to the shelter was quiet. The alleyways always were. Nibbling on a piece of dried meat, Jed headed towards the landmarks in the city he had memorized. He was thinking about the card game when he heard the explosion. He nearly dropped everything when he heard the death bell toll; it could only mean one thing. The demon had destroyed a part of the wall, and already Jed could hear the wind rushing past him, meaning _it _was coming. "This thing gets stronger every time." He said in all truth. Each time _it _came, it did something that surprised him into speechlessness; but it never lasted long. _Here we go again_, he thought as he started flying through the alleyways like a shadow under the sun. "Lets see what happens this time he said" willing a dagger into his hand. An experiment gone badly had absorbed two bands of unel daggers into his wrists, from where he could then call to him whenever we he needed them. Two daggers suddenly appeared in his hands. "Let's see if you can catch me tonight."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Burning Sword

_Kraaw, _Screamed a raven parked half way up the oak, eyeing the darkly handsome figure leaning against his tree; the man had dark brown, almost black, hair cropped short with a wild look about it, and the only other wilder thing being his eyes. Anybody seeing the man for the first time would think he was a defeated sword-for-hire reliving his errors; but Jed did not make errors. Running for ten years now and the presence inside him that imparted instead of saying what it wanted, had caused Jed to hone his muscles and skills to the rock hard, blur of a vision they were now.

He looked up from his perch at the bottom of the tree to the raven he had obviously disturbed at some time during his reminiscing. He opened a small container holding someliqour from the last inn with a unel dagger that seemed to have appeared out of thin air. He took a long swig, to which the raven gave another cry; _thump!_It'shead was suddenly nailedinto the branch above it, a dagger protruding from where the bottom of the beak and throat met,blood squirting everywhere accept the dark shadow stalking towards the city in the distance, taking another long pull at the container before throwing it into the bushes on the side of the road.

He was thinking about which direction he would head in a few days, when he heard arguing issued from some distance into the trees tohis right. He smiled; he needed the release he got when taking the life of a man, and it was just some more unlucky farmers that would feel his daggers, not anybody important. He blended into the shadowy forest instantly and could have crept up on his own shadow if he wanted to; that was a joke he liked making to himself.

Grabbing a branch, he swung himself a couple generations of branches up and ran like he was still on the ground, making his way without a sound to the location of the farmers. It was not till he stopped directly ten feet above the two men that he realized they were not farmers, but soldiers. Excited at the prospect of fighting somebody more skilled than a farmer, Jed dropped from his location before the men got distracted from their discussion and lowered thier guard, which was the first mistake Jed had made in his life. Had he stopped and studied the soldiers, he would have seen the grace with which they carried themselves.

Halfway through the decent, the closest soldier whipped around with a slightly curved sword in his left hand, arcing for where Jed's mid section would be in a matter of mille-seconds, his dagger curved under his arm waiting in case the sword missed, swingingwide with his left hand and straight up with his right. Jed twisted between both the weapons, smashing his shoulder into the soldiers' face, which the soldier accepted to deal a blow to Jed's chest with his sword, sending Jed back onto the point of the second soldiers waiting sword, stabbing a few inches into his lower back and causing a short tiny stream of blood when it was retracted.

Jed was surrounded somehow by the two men who were working in what could have been called a beautiful symphony of life; the dance to protect innocent lives of the many Jed would kill in the years to come. All this happened in a split second, but more than enough time for two daggers to appear in Jed's hands, and the dance of death to begin. Spinning like a hurricane, Jed dipped high, and then low at the second soldier, cloak billowing in the wind, followed by a round-house kick to the first soldier's throat. A loud snapping noise ensued, but Jed didn't hear or see it happen; he just knew. Finishing the turn, he came from his lower left to upper right, gutting the soldier.

Jed stood there and watched both men slowly die before taking out a hip flask and draining all the components inside. Looking at the steaming flesh where the first soldier's sword had left a clean, but burnt black line down his chest that was already dead three inches surrounding the cut. _Don't worry about it _the presence in his head imparted to him, _I will have that clean and healthy by the morning. _Jed smiled evilly, enjoying the fact that the malicious presence in his head would never let him die, no matter what happened.

He was extremely interested in the sword that burnt as well as cut with the precision of a razor. Picking it up, he slowly pulled it across his left forearm, to which the sword grew a glowing, unholy red light leaving a black line where the sword touched skin. Jed wasn't surprised to find that he liked it, but to his astonishment, the sword seemed to like it as well The scabbard connected to the soldiers waist flew and connected itself through the back of Jed' cloak to his black leather armor underneath. "It seems the sword has chosen me" he said to himself and the being swelling with jealousy in his head. He continued down the direction he had originally assumed, frowning when thoughts of who the soldiers might have been, crossed into something he didn't like. Looking at his new sword caused him to forget, and he smiled to himself because of all the fun he was about to have now that he had a weapon like this.


End file.
